Prime Minister’s Office steps in to get highways back on track

NEW DELHI: The Prime Minister’s Office has launched a rescue operation for India’s flagging highway development programme which has seen few new projects taking off this year even as financially stressed developers have walked out of projects worth Rs 12,700 crore last month blaming tardy environmental clearances.

Principal secretary in the PM’s office Pulok Chatterjee chaired a meeting on Monday to review the problems plaguing the road sector and fleshed out a strategy to get highways back on track. The plan includes setting up a new regulator to settle disputes, derisking road builders from cost escalations caused by red-tape induced delays and allowing them to transfer their equity in ongoing projects to ease their financing woes, officials in highways ministry and NHAI told ET.